Poltran? (the free online Polish-English dictionary) - where's it gone?

It's called English. There's lots of material out there on teaching it. There are lots of native speakers. It's easy to pick up the basics, no reinvestment needs to be made. Esperanto might work for the western world, but the majority of new language learning is taking place in Asia, particularly in countries which have been largely influenced during colonial times by the English language.

The ideals of Esperanto (and volapuk, ido, interlingua and the rest) are sound and worthy still of consideration. Language however is notoriously difficult to manipulate, (see Chomsky, Krashen even more so) and English has taken the role of an internacia interlingvon.

And 10-12 mil vortojn doesn't make for a huge corpus of literature.

Besides, Ludvic Zamenhof originally intended Esperanto to be used as a bridge between Jews, Poles and Belarussians. It didn't take off as he intended and the Almanac figures were at odds with his initial projections. Still, a valiant effort!

I can't believe Poltran is down! The translations on that website were so amusing!

English isn't going to be the world's second language:

pagef30.com/2008/06/english-is-not-going-to-become-worlds.html

It will stay at the top until at least 2050, but is not destined to seal the deal (become a language that everyone can use to communicate). To achieve a universal second language a different solution is needed.

Also try getionary.

lol everytime I type poltran into google or yahoo from pure habit your thread on here comes up as the first result and poltran is no where to be found. Congrats on making yourself famous, lol. Anyway, I too am currently using google translation as of now, even though it has some glitches to it.

Here is what I use since Poltran went down: freetranslation.com/

Poltran wasn't very good at translating in the first place.
Anyone who relied on them too much was bound to make horrible errors.

I use Translatica.pl It works well.

Since starting this post back in March, I've been using Google Translator and found it to be ok.
Thanks to everyone who replied, and for all your added dittos about world languages.
X Rachel X

Try slowniki.onet.pl

It has from many languages topolish and vice-versa.

Mao-Mao

translate.google.pl

It is the same thing only Polish version

Can anyone tell me if the name Krajewski is Jewish?

Sure. This is traditional Ugro-Turkish name of Jewish origin.
The source word of "Krajewski" is Polish "krój" "kroić" wchich mean "cut", "cuted" or "circumsized".

The other theory about origin of this surname is that it is a connection of two words:
"Kraj" - land, state
"jewski" - Jew's
The rough translation of this surname is "Jewland"

See: "Rzezak"

here it is
poltran.com/

I find the ling.pl web1.ling.pl/index.html very useful and quick.

If you say it is from Polish "kraj" how can it be jewish than?
Krajewski = Kraj +ew"ski" like other polish surname Majewski=Maj+ew"ski",
1. Common rule of creating polish surnames is that after word ending with "j" is mostly added endling like jewski, jski (less often anowski like Pij-anowski, -ewicz like Majewicz). Ending j+ewski i added more commonly than originally slavic j+ski because is easier to spell.

Ending -ski is 100% slavic you can find it commonly in Poland, Russia, Bulgaria and so on.

2. Word Kraj is 100% slavic. With etymology you said above. Krajać (cut material with scissors), Kroić (cut bread), Kraj/Kraina (country/state = country space cutted/ending by borders on map), sKraj (periferals, endind of lands - like in slavic country name uKRAIne ).

3. It can't be jewish because in Poland Jews were speaking Jiddish - smilar with German language and they mostly had surnames of german/jiddish origin. Also Jews couldnt use any -jewish ending and jewski is not slavisated version of -jewski because calling "jewish" is an english name(!). In Polish jewish i "Żyd-owski" and in Germany Jews were called "Jude".

4. Polonisation of jewish surnames happened at time of WWII when they tried to escape German Nazi Holocaust and german gettos or easier integrate in population under soviet occupation of Poland after WWII. They didnt add polish englind to jewish surnames they just take common polish surname to look more polish without any trace of "jewishness" and easier hide or pass the border.

5. Krajewski as Jewland? Nonsens. Maybe all Poles and Slavs are Jews than? Some comming from Chazaria had been converted into judaism and still have slavic blood but lets be serious. ;-)

Another slavic word for cutting but older is Rezać, Rzezać, Rząć, obrzezać(slavic name for jewish traditional cutting of... you know what ;) ), also slavic "rzeźnia" is slaughterhouse. Rezać/Rezat is so old slavic word that is even now used in Romania - former slavic country in ancient times but now nearly 100% romanisated.